http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |• In May, two members of the Senate Intelligence Oversight Committee requested the total number of U.S. citizens who have been legally spied upon (by phone calls, e-mail, etc.) since 2008 by the National Security Agency, but the NSA's inspector general said he was prohibited from answering.

To go back through agency records, he said, would violate the privacy rights of those spied-upon U.S. citizens, which the agency cannot do without judicial warrant. [Wired.com Danger Room blog, 6-18-2012]

• Well-Put: Pushing for an Oklahoma state senate bill authorizing the open carrying of guns (which eventually passed), Sen. Ralph Shortey explained in a March committee hearing that it was an incident from his past that convinced him of the need to carry a gun openly.

"I was in oil and gas. I was out on a lease at one time, and I got attacked by a turkey. Wait until you get attacked by a turkey. You will know the fear that a turkey can invoke in a person. And so I beat it with a club. That was all I could do. And (then) I started carrying a gun in my truck after that without a license because I didn't want to get attacked by a mountain lion." [Tulsa World, 3-31-2012]